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January 12, 2012

LI Press Article on Mangano's Plan

Mangano said he will announce a new plan soon that would “jumpstart” redevelopment of the arena and the surrounding area while helping the county “retain the Islanders.” He would not release any details but promised it would be “another approach” to redeveloping the area that would meet his criteria that the solution be “privately financed.”

According to Mangano, the coliseum annually generates roughly $200 million in economic activity now. He would not speculate on whether the proposal he’s working on behind the scenes would satisfy Wang. “Ask him,” he told the assembled reporters.

But Mangano did say that he feels strongly that the site must remain “a sports-entertainment destination” and that the coliseum needs a sports team to be an anchor tenant there.
He said he’d hoped that ambitious plans for the area would have gotten a nod from Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Regional Economic Development Council initiative, which awarded Long Island’s package of projects $101.6 million in December. But neither the arena nor various plans for the surrounding are known as the Nassau Hub didn’t make the cut, in part, state sources have told the Press, because the county’s plans were in the early stages compared to the other projects that were much further along and won funding.
Mangano said that he’d recently met with Long Island Association President Kevin Law and Hofstra University President Stuart Rabinowitz, who co-chair the Long Island Regional Economic Development Council, to discuss how the Hub might get a bigger boost from his Accelerate Nassau Now initiative.